Heart failure (HF) is a debilitating disease that refers to a clinical syndrome in which an abnormality of cardiac function causes a below normal cardiac output that can fall below a level adequate to meet the metabolic demand of peripheral tissues. Heart failure can be due to a variety of etiologies with ischemic heart disease being the most common. Inadequate pumping of blood into the arterial system by the heart is sometimes referred to as “forward failure,” with “backward failure” referring to the resulting elevated pressures in the lungs and systemic veins which lead to congestion. Backward failure is the natural consequence of forward failure as blood in the pulmonary and venous systems fails to be pumped out. Forward failure can be caused by impaired contractility of the ventricles due, for example, to coronary artery disease, or by an increased afterload (i.e., the forces resisting ejection of blood) due to, for example, systemic hypertension or valvular dysfunction. One physiological compensatory mechanism that acts to increase cardiac output is due to backward failure which increases the diastolic filling pressure of the ventricles and thereby increases the preload (i.e., the degree to which the ventricles are stretched by the volume of blood in the ventricles at the end of diastole). An increase in preload causes an increase in stroke volume during systole, a phenomena known as the Frank-Starling principle. Thus, heart failure can be at least partially compensated by this mechanism but at the expense of possible pulmonary and/or systemic congestion.
When the ventricles are stretched due to the increased preload over a period of time, the ventricles become dilated. The enlargement of the ventricular volume causes increased ventricular wall stress at a given systolic pressure. Along with the increased pressure-volume work done by the ventricle, this acts as a stimulus for hypertrophy of the ventricular myocardium which leads to alterations in cellular structure, a process referred to as ventricular remodeling. Ventricular remodeling leads to further dysfunction by decreasing the compliance of the ventricles (thereby increasing diastolic filling pressure to result in even more congestion) and causing eventual wall thinning that causes further deterioration in cardiac function. It has been shown that the extent of ventricular remodeling is positively correlated with increased mortality in HF patients.
A myocardial infarction (MI) is the irreversible damage done to a segment of heart muscle by ischemia, where the myocardium is deprived of adequate oxygen and metabolite removal due to an interruption in blood supply. It is usually due to a sudden thrombotic occlusion of a coronary artery, commonly called a heart attack. If the coronary artery becomes completely occluded and there is poor collateral blood flow to the affected area, a transmural or full-wall thickness infarct can result in which much of the contractile function of the area is lost. Over a period of one to two months, the necrotic tissue heals, leaving a scar. The most extreme example of this is a ventricular aneurysm, where all of the muscle fibers in the area are destroyed and replaced by fibrous scar tissue. Even if the ventricular dysfunction as a result of the infarct is not immediately life-threatening, a common sequela of a transmural myocardial infarction, or any major MI, especially in the left ventricle, is heart failure brought about by ventricular remodeling in response to the hemodynamic effects of the infarct that causes changes in the shape and size of the ventricle. The remodeling is initiated in response to a redistribution of cardiac stress and strain caused by the impairment of contractile function in the infarcted area as well as in nearby and/or interspersed viable myocardial tissue with lessened contractility due to the infarct. Following an MI, the infarcted area includes tissue undergoing ischemic necrosis and is surrounded by normal myocardium. Until scar tissue forms and even after it forms, the area around the infarcted area is particularly vulnerable to the distending forces within the ventricle and undergoes expansion over a period of hours to days. Over the next few days and months after scar tissue has formed, global remodeling and chamber enlargement occur due to complex alterations in the architecture of the ventricle involving both infarcted and non-infarcted areas. It has been found that the extent of left ventricular remodeling in the late period after an infarction, as represented by measurements of end-systolic and end-diastolic left ventricular volumes, is an even more powerful predictor of subsequent mortality than the extent of coronary artery disease.
Remodeling is thought to be the result of a complex interplay of hemodynamic, neural, and hormonal factors that occur primarily in response to myocardial wall stress. As noted above, one physiological compensatory mechanism that acts to increase cardiac output is increased diastolic filling pressure of the ventricles as an increased volume of blood is left in the lungs and venous system, thus increasing preload. The ventricular dilation resulting from the increased preload causes increased ventricular wall stress at a given systolic pressure in accordance with Laplace's law. Along with the increased pressure-volume work done by the ventricle, this acts as a stimulus for compensatory hypertrophy of the ventricular myocardium. Hypertrophy can increase systolic pressures but, if the hypertrophy is not sufficient to meet the increased wall stress, further and progressive dilation results. This non-compensatory dilation causes wall thinning and further impairment in left ventricular function. It also has been shown that the sustained stresses causing hypertrophy may induce apoptosis (i.e., programmed cell death) of cardiac muscle cells. Thus, although ventricular dilation and hypertrophy may at first be compensatory and increase cardiac output, the process ultimately results in further deterioration and dysfunction.
It has long been known that the heart muscle responds favorably to exercise so as to result in greater pumping efficacy. Studies have shown that HF and post-MI patients can improve their cardiac function and prognosis with regular periods of exercise. Many HF and post-MI patients, however, are either debilitated and cannot exercise or do not tolerate exercise well enough to exercise effectively.